


Sleepless in My Head

by leporidae



Category: Tangled: The Series (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Ghosts, Graphic Description of Corpses, Guilt, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Solitary Confinement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 09:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17464895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leporidae/pseuds/leporidae
Summary: Some days letting himself waste away seems like the only option, and the desire to disappear washes over him like high tide. When that happens, he thinks of those who had wronged him — Rapunzel's luminous kindness, Cassandra's determined responsibility, Flynn Rider's false heroism — and he knows he can't give up quite yet.





	Sleepless in My Head

**Author's Note:**

> Have we collectively decided how to spell Rudiger/Ruddiger's name yet?

Scratching tally marks into a prison wall to keep track of how many days have passed in confinement is quite the melodramatic cliche. Who cares about the passage of time when every day's routine is identical? Besides, he can only imagine what kind of punishment would come of defacing the precious walls of Corona's prison; the _benevolent_ royal family would most likely tax their prisoners for the graffiti and justify their actions under the guise of "keeping the city clean and safe for all who live there,"  _blah blah blah._

A scoff leaves Varian’s lips as he turns over in his cot. It’s the first sound he’s heard for a while, because talking to himself has grown rather boring. They had confiscated everything on his person when they’d thrown him in the slammer, and that hadn’t been much. But the people of Corona fear alchemy and fear _him_ , so even his harmless inventions seemed like torture devices to them. Varian wishes they had left him his goggles, though. When the anxiety of his work overwhelms him he takes to fidgeting with the lenses, adjusting them in and out of focus with that soft _click click_ that recalibrates his nerves. But they had taken them along with everything else, and the _tap tap_ of his finger against the bed frame doesn’t ease his mind in the same way.

At the foot of his bed lies Ruddiger, curled up with his tail tucked around his snout for warmth. He’s thinner than he used to be (so is Varian, for that matter) but for whatever unfathomable reason — some unwavering animal loyalty perhaps — he had remained by Varian’s side, despite having cowered at the boy’s raw anguish during the debacle with Queen Arianna. But the raccoon’s presence is hardly comforting to the young alchemist, who can’t help but feel that the suffocating frustration of being ostracized by the entirety of Corona and losing his father to the petrified amber prison in his study far outweighs the companionship provided by a thieving animal who eats out of the trash.

Varian can hear the whistling of wind through a vent situated on the ceiling above the bed, and he grimaces, folding the sides of his stiff pillow over his ears. The sound is an unwelcome reminder that the outside world is still out there, experiencing days and nights and weather and the passage of time, all luxuries Varian is now lacking. The vent itself is too small for even Ruddiger to escape through (he’s checked).

The alchemist had spent the first few days of his confinement lashing out at every guard who gave him food, Ruddiger cowering in the corner as Varian spit venomous words until his voice gave out. But Varian had never been very hardy, and his anger had exhausted him quickly. Now all he can muster is a low-lidded glare every time one of the royal peons slides him a tray of stale leftovers from some once-delicious fancy royal dinner, but he doesn’t speak. They don’t deserve his words when they won’t listen to him anyway.

Sometimes he can hear the guards talking in the corridor outside his cell, and what he's gathered is that Rapunzel and her merry crew had recently left Corona to further investigate the secret of the rocks that had taken everything from him. It’s just like the princess to leave him behind, over and over again, so Varian isn’t surprised by the news. But it does make his lip curl with disgust to think of his own foolishness — how had he ever expected someone like her to help someone like him? She's the princess, a miracle of magic in a world otherwise run by logic and science, and she has the support of her friends and family no matter what mistakes she makes. To Varian, ostracized by his own village and yearning to finally form alliances in important places, the emblem of Corona had once been his only light of hope in the darkness; now the sun symbol of their kingdom simply watches him impassively, a mocking and condescending eye.

Varian closes his eyes and attempts to steady his breathing. Back home in Old Corona he often found himself plagued by insomnia, and he’d filled many sleepless nights with reading and tinkering. But in this cell, Varian has been given nothing to read and nothing to tinker with, because heavens forbid the only intelligent person in the entire kingdom is armed with even _more_ knowledge. He’s bored, more bored than he’s ever felt in his life, and it’s like he has an itch that he can’t scratch, but the itch is within his own mind. Some days letting himself waste away seems like the only option, and the desire to disappear washes over him like high tide. When that happens, he thinks of those who had wronged him — Rapunzel's luminous kindness, Cassandra's determined responsibility, Flynn Rider's false heroism — and he knows he can't give up quite yet.

“Hello, Varian.”

The voice comes with no warning, and Varian thinks nothing of it, chalking up the perception to his sleep-deprived state. Insomnia often blurs the lines between his dreams and reality, especially when he sinks into that intermediary state where he's not quite asleep but certainly not awake. If anything, knowing his sense of reality is slipping is a relief, as it means that he's about to fall asleep and finally get a few harried hours of the rest he so desperately craves.

"Ignoring a guest? You've become quite the misanthrope."

It's louder this time — that's not right. By this point the hazy conversations within his own mind have usually faded to an indistinct and lulling muttering. Desperately Varian squints his eyes shut and takes a few shuddering breaths. This has to be nothing more than a hallucination, caused from sleep paralysis or the stress of solitary confinement. That's it — it’s just science. If he falls asleep, it’ll go away, just an unusaully unpleasant dream —

“It’s rude not to look someone in the eye when they talk, you know. Or have you forgotten how to communicate with others entirely?”

Varian’s eyes flutter open as his heart pounds, and he glances up slowly, breath hitching in his throat. Standing — no, _floating_ before him is the glowing figure of a woman, with hazy features that seem to oscillate in their transparency like aura. When he tries to focus on her face the features blur, but he can tell her silhouette is slim and curved, with bushy hair and an inviting, shimmering smile, one he can’t look at directly.

“I — I refuse to talk to hallucinations,” Varian stammers stubbornly. “Clearly, being alone for so long has given me a fever.” He presses the back of his knuckles against his forehead, dismayed to find the skin there is not warm. “Or I’m — I’m starving, or I hit my head while I was sleeping. You know how it is with these prison beds — everything's so hard, and it'd be  _so_ easy to injure yourself. Either way, this clearly — _clearly_ isn't real.”

The woman swoops toward him, and Ruddiger chitters nervously, shifting his body closer to Varian’s legs. “Oh, please. As though you’re creative enough to have come up with me with your own imagination.”

“Ghosts don’t exist,” Varian insists, but his voice is raspy and belies his fear. “Logically speaking, I —"

“Don’t you want to get your revenge on Rapunzel?”

Instantly he sits up, his prior timidity melting to wary curiosity in an instant. “...Who are you?”

The woman laughs unkindly, and Varian scowls, roiling at the condescension. “For a bright boy, you’re really rather stupid, aren’t you? Well — that makes sense, considering you’re foolish enough to have been locked in jail by the most _incompetent_ royal family. And the laziest, too. They sure took their _sweet time_ searching for their daughter. Or perhaps they didn't truly care enough about her to truly look. But sending lanterns — how poetic.” With a languid shrug, the apparition inspects her transparent nails. “How embarrassing for them that a _nothing_ thief was the one who finally found her.”

“Flynn Rider…” That "nothing thief" had once been a great inspiration to Varian — at least, before he had turned his back on the alchemist like everyone else. Not even his childhood hero could be bothered to see value in the abject failure Varian had become.

“Oh, he’s still alive? What a shame.” The figure lurches forward, and Varian winces. “It’s almost laughable how incompetent the king can be. But you know that firsthand, don’t you?”

“Tell me who you are!”

More laughter. “It’s Gothel, dear. And don’t yell, it irritates me.”

“Gothel? As in — as in _the_ Gothel, the one who kidnapped the princess and locked her away all those years?” Varian watches the specter with a mixture of awe and skepticism. Sure, the woman before him matches the description of the witch he knew from hearsay, but Gothel had _died,_ and not even the most advanced alchemy can bring a person back to life. And ghosts are the product of human superstition, _not_ science.

“No, the Gothel who kidnapped the queen and locked away their own father in a spire of amber.” An eyebrow arches sarcastically. “Oh, wait — my mistake. That would be _you_.”

Beyond ashamed, Varian’s gaze dips to the ground. “I don’t need a hallucination reminding me what I did,” he says quietly, voice splintering with uncertainty. “I _know_. And as for the Queen — it had to be done. The royalty of Corona are so _selfish_ — they would never spring into action to help me unless their own flesh and blood was at stake. My father was just another stupid commoner to them. _I_ was just another stupid commoner.”

The Gothel-apparition clucks her tongue with insincere sympathy. “They kept the Sun Drop Flower all to themselves too,” she says. “It’s all _me me me_ with those kings and queens. Keeping Rapunzel’s healing powers from the world is dreadfully selfish. But alas — that’s how the world of royals and peasants operates.”

“Right?! Finally, someone who understands — !” _No, Varian. She’s not real. Focus! You’re just seeing things because you can’t sleep._ Cautiously he turns toward the wall, studying the pattern in the cracks. If he’s bored enough (and he will be), perhaps he will memorize them later.

“No wonder Rapunzel doesn’t like you,” croons Gothel’s voice from behind him. “You’re a nasty, antisocial little boy, aren’t you?”

_Don’t respond. It will all dissolve away once you close your eyes._

“But of course you don’t care— it’s not _me_ you wish to speak to, is it?” Gothel’s laugh is grating, like the sound of one of Varian’s machines when it malfunctions, metal on piercing metal. "But there’s someone here you might _want_ to see.”

“There’s no one I _want_ to see,” Varian spits back. “None of them can be trusted, none of them at all! You’re lying to me too — just like they all — ! Like everyone — !” Fingers grasp through his hair, completely ordinary, non-magical hair — not like the princess’s hair with healing powers she had _withheld_ from Varian because —

_Because she_ _only_ _cares_ _about_ _herself!_

Besides, no one  _wants_ to see Varian. If there's one constant in his life now, it's that and that alone. And there's nothing that could ever change —

“Son.”

Varian hits the floor before he realizes he has fallen, nails scraping across the ground as he scrambles backwards away from the figure in front of him. The space where Gothel had occupied just moments prior is now filled with an equally-eerie specter of his _father_ , as imposing and large and bristling with judgment as ever, and he gazes down his son with flickering, ethereal eyes. Varian’s back slams against the cell wall and he whimpers, a spark of pain shooting through his frail body. As the room tilts in his vision he spots Ruddiger peering out at him from under the bed with fearful, dilated eyes.

“Do you know why I am here? Why I appear before you as a ghost?”

“No, no!” Varian whimpers. “Dad, I —”

 _Please don’t say_ —

“Because you killed me.”

An image flashes through Varian’s mind, painful as the crack of a whip, of his father’s lifeless body pulled from crumbling amber, the tips of his fingers blue and cold. The amber had been preserving Quirin’s body like it would a fossil — why would his heart still beat after all this time stopped? Once they break him loose from the resin’s grasp, his body will begin to decay, and leave a sulfuric stench of dead flesh in Varian’s underground study, far worse than anything Ruddiger had ever dragged in. In his delirium he envisions his father's broad chest that had once pulled him in for protective hugs flaking away with black rotted flesh, maggots erupting from the strong jawline of the mouth that had scolded him for dabbling in alchemy, stern eyes swelling up out of his skull to never look upon his son in disappointment ever again.

Nausea blurs his vision, and he grasps at the ground; somewhere behind him the squeaking of his filthy companion pierces through his consciousness. Varian swipes at the air hoping to dispel something, _anything_ — Ruddiger’s worthless concern, the ghosts, the dust of the cell — and his hands are so frail without his protective gloves, cuticles peeling and bloody and skin littered with bruises from the uncomfortable bed frame he’s grasped at night through nightmares. The same hands had turned his father to a statue, stolen the Sun Drop Flower, experimented on his companions, kidnapped the queen… and had the potential to do so much worse.

_And so much better…?_

Fists strike the ground again, and the cloud of dust that arises chokes him like chemical fumes, a firm grip around his throat as he coughs and coughs and _coughs._ Everything is spinning now, every defined shape is a splash of color, every bad decision he ever made —

No — every _correct_ decision that had gone horribly wrong because of _other people_ —

_I was right —_

_I was wrong —_

_Dad, I —_

His eyes squeeze shut as he collapses to the floor.

* * *

When the Captain of the Guards and his men visit the cell later that afternoon to deliver Varian’s daily food rations, they find the boy is neither awake nor in his bed. He’s crumpled awkwardly on the floor, and for a moment the Captain’s gut jolts when he does not see Varian’s chest rising and falling with the intake of his breath. But the boy shifts slightly, and the Captain snaps out of an otherwise horrified paralysis.

“Sleeping outside his bed?” Stan peers through the bars at the prisoner from a safe distance as Pete tentatively watches from even further, and the Captain can’t help but roll his eyes at their unnecessary caution. After all, the boy is not only locked away, but also without all his alchemical flotsam and jetsam. Surely it's safe just to observe him —

Varian moans, and all three men jump back, as though this shattered shell of a teenage boy could do them any harm. But the stories of the vicious and frightening boy had spread through Corona like a plague, tales of the soulless monster of a youth who had betrayed their beloved Princess Rapunzel and threatened Queen Arianna with eternal imprisonment as one of his personal experiments. Just mentioning the word "alchemy" around Corona's citizens now is enough to drain the color from their cheeks and prompt them to board up their shutters. 

“L-let’s go,” Pete says, nervously shifting his weight side to side in his boots. “That kid gives me the creeps.”

“For once, I actually agree,” Stan chimes in, ignoring Pete’s indignant scoff of disapproval. “We can bring the food back when he’s awake.”

The Captain sighs, massaging his temple. "We can check back again in another hour." Though he believes his men's fear of Varian is disproportionate, there's admittedly not much that can be done in the way of feeding him when he's not awake.  Stan and Pete heave a relieved sigh in unison and quickly scramble over one another toward the door.

“Dad… _please…_ ”

The Captain pauses as the whisper of the boy’s broken plea reaches his ears, and he can’t help but turn back one last time to gaze with sympathy upon the boy curled in a fetal position on the dusty ground. His face is scrunched with agony and he looks so _young_ , and the Captain is brutally reminded that the man who had nearly destroyed the peace of Corona isn’t a _man_ at all, but a troubled boy worried for his father. And in that moment it’s not Varian he sees huddled there but Cassandra, begging her adopted father to trust her, to _listen_ to her, and the Captain’s brow furrows. Without his magic — his alchemy, rather — Varian is nothing but a pathetic child.

“Boss?”

The Captain coughs. “Right… let’s go for now.”

If the Captain had stayed but a minute longer, he may have witnessed the shaking Varian begin to cry silently, trembling in his sleep as he dreams of loneliness and guilt. And if he had witnessed it, he may have been compelled to unlock the cell door and take the broken boy into his arms, much like he had done for another broken girl many years ago.

But he doesn’t stay, and Varian remains alone.

**Author's Note:**

> ...This technically could be canon compliant, which makes it worse.
> 
> (Title from [this song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5TpNmS4OX0))


End file.
